THE FOURTH DAY OF OCTOBER IN THE YEAR OF GRACE TWO THOUSAND AND FIFTEEN.
A gracEmail subscriber writes: "No matter what the question, you answer them all the same. In the first paragraph you say, lawyer-like, 'It might be this way.' 'In the second paragraph you say, 'It might be that way.' In the third paragraph you say, 'Joy, grace, Jesus, and little gray squirrels.' Can't you ever just give a clear, straight answer?"
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On some subjects, as least, I plead guilty as charged. For the record, I began preaching and teaching Scripture in 1961 and was not licensed as an attorney … [Read more...]

THE FIFTH DAY OF APRIL IN THE YEAR OF GRACE TWO THOUSAND AND FIFTEEN
The acknowledgement came slowly and with much hesitation, but the sequestered disciples finally said it: The Lord is risen." Indeed (Lk. 24:34). This from Jesus hardcore survivors. Roughly ten dozen of them--if anyone is counting. Unlike other rabbinic clusters, this one includes women right alongside the men. To Jesus they all are the same, but most males in the company will die before they share his thinking on this point.
So here they are this Sunday morning, 120 men and women waiting together for God knows … [Read more...]

THE TWENTY-NINTH DAY OF MARCH IN THE YEAR OF GRACE TWO THOUSAND AND FIFTEEN
Click here for Part 1
We are thinking about three sentences in a context, of which John 3:16 is the second, central, and climactic sentence. The statement that God "so loved" does not describe the intensity or extent of his love (as if it said "s-o-o-o loved") but rather tells "how" God loved--it is the same "so" we saw in the first sentence and, like that one, it points to the text immediately before it. How did God love the world? The answer is found in an old story about poisonous snakes.
"As Moses … [Read more...]

THE TWENTY-SECOND DAY OF MARCH IN THE YEAR OF GRACE TWO THOUSAND AND FIFTEEN
We are familiar with Jesus' comforting words in John 3:16 about God's love and the believer's eternal life. But, as my preacher Jeff Christian noted recently, we often read or quote verse 16 in total isolation, are surprised to discover that the verse has a context, and are shocked to realize what that context says. In fact, John 3:16 is the climactic center and high point of four supposed-to-be-inseparable verses (John 3:14- 17) that include the two sentences Jesus spoke immediately before and after it. … [Read more...]

DAY TWENTY-TWO OF FEBRUARY, YEAR OF GRACE TWENTY FIFTEEN
A gracEmail subscriber writes: "The author of Hebrews says that Jesus "for the joy that was set before him endured the cross" (Heb. 12:2). What is that joy? Paul prayed for his converts to know "the riches of [God's] glorious inheritance in the saints" (Eph. 1:18). Is this saying what it sounds like? Are the saved themselves somehow a part of Christ's own reward?
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God has named Jesus "heir of all things" and that includes every human being he rescues from destruction (Heb. 1:2). They all will be presented to him as a gift and … [Read more...]

A gracEmail subscriber writes: "I was wondering what you would say to the average person who was questioning how to believe in the innate infallibility of our biblical canon."
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It seems to me both misguided and profitless to obsess about the precise canon of Scripture, or to become engrossed in hair-splitting definitions of infallibility, inerrancy and other such terms, especially if one limits the applicability of these words to the original autographs. The church was not built on a doctrine about either the canon or infallibility, but on the apostolic testimony about Jesus of … [Read more...]

A crowning diamond in the Christian treasury is the gracious ease with which God's self-revelation to humankind occurs, and the beauty of its flow from Word to words and back again to Word, until every rift between God and humans is removed and relationship is fully restored. The cycle of redemption is thus completed: the fullness of God becomes human and, through dying and being raised from death, brings the fullness of humanity into the glory of its intended destiny in sharing the divine nature (Heb. 2:5-9; 2 Pet. 1:3-4).
The cycle of revelation begins in the eternal beauty of God's … [Read more...]

What a sense of awe and wonder Moses must have felt, there in the silence of the wilderness, when God spoke to him from the burning bush! Can we even imagine the awful terror with which the Israelites waited to hear God speak from Mount Sinai--the mountain quaking, its form hidden by smoke, the air charged with lightning on a day as black as night? What awesome joy surged through Peter, James, and John on the mount of the Transfiguration as God spoke from heaven and Jesus shone with the brilliance of his divine glory. Do we wish we could have been there when these encounters took place, or are … [Read more...]

With the Flood, order reverts to chaos and creation is undone. Outside the Ark beneath the silent primordial ocean, the earth again is formless and empty of breathing life. Soon will come a new creation--as was the first, wakened by breath or wind of God. Like the first creation, it emerges step-by-orderly-step out of the primordial Deep, following the general pattern of the Six Days of Genesis 1:3-31, to become the home of a new creation and a rescued humankind.
Just as the spirit (or Spirit) of God originally hovered over the chaotic and oceanic Deep (Gen. 1:2), now a "wind" from God … [Read more...]

THE ASSIGNMENT
The first rays of morning gradually illumined the volcanic mountains before me, and the cobblestone streets of Antigua glowed softly beneath my feet. It was August 2007, and I was in this picturesque Guatemalan village on professional retreat with my employer, the Lanier Law Firm of Houston, Texas. During this early morning walk, I was asking God for a new assignment -- something he would enable me to do to bless others and to bring him honor.
the answer
Within hours, I began to sense an answer. I was to encourage some of God's people by writing a new commentary on Hebrews. … [Read more...]